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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 1226.PDF
cBYl airship^services over certain long-distance routes, such as to Egypt and India, at rates within a little of steamer fares, and still make a profit. Whether that is a too sanguine estimate we shall learn before long through the medium of the projected experiments. In the meantime, we can only again congratulate the Air Ministry upon a very wise and timely move. Last week the House of Commons wasne Future askeci ^0 endorse a contract between th^e A'r Mi Is Postmaster-General and the London and North-Western Railway Co. for the carriage of the mails between England and Ireland for a period of twenty years. The contract gave rise to considerable discussion, particularly with reference to the possibility of carrying at least a part of the mail matter by air. The portions of the debate which turned about this latter part of the question are printed in another page of this issue of FLIGHT. It will be gathered from reading the report in question that the Postmaster-General was not at all unsympathetic in his attitude. He pointed out that air mails are at present in operation between London and Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels, and that the question of air mails generally is not being over- looked by _the Post Office. The atmospheric con- ditions were, he said, much more favourable in the case of these existing services than those which obtain on the Irish route. Not only so, but the essence of the Irish mail is that it should go by night. At present night flying cannot be done at the moment, and therefore it was out of the question that the mails could go by air. He went on to say that if, during the next twenty years, the mail service by air should become a practical proposition, there was provision made in the contract for making a corresponding reduction in the amount to be paid to the railway company for the fewer mails they would have to carry. Undoubtedly, aerial enterprise is gravely pre- judiced by the undeniable fact that night-flying is, for the present, too uncertain to be commercially- practical. Wre have a considerable distance to travel before this can be entirely rectified. There are two main difficulties in the way of night services. One of these can be overcome with comparative ease, but the other is one which will need research and dis- covery to eliminate. The first is bound up with the provision of proper navigational lights for the guid- ance of the aerial traveller. That is a question with which we dealt at some length a few weeks since, so there is no necessity for us to traverse the question afresh. Given properly illuminated landing grounds and adequate leading lights, night-flying in clear weather need be no more dangerous or difficult than flying by day. The most serious enemy of the night-flying pilot is fog or mist, and there is a great deal of it to contend with on the Irish mail route. It is as well to admit at once that there does not seem to be overmuch possibility of the maintenance of a regular and punctual air mail service over that route until fuller knowledge, and possibly some revolutionary dis- covery, shall make it possible to carry OTI with ease flying services in fog or thick weather. Passing from the question of this one specific service to glance at the question at large, while we are pleased to note that the Postmaster-General is generally sympathetic to the idea of carrying the mails by air, we still feel regret that he does not seem to get any closer DECEMBER 2, 1920 to the idea that, where air mails are in regular operation and are keeping time, as is the case between London and Paris, all first-class mail matter should automatically be conveyed by aircraft. As we have often urged in these columns, it is only by so doing that the Post Office can convince the public that aerial transport is at once safe and speedy, the while it affords a very much needed measure of support to civil aviation. TheEnemies of theR.A.F. It is very evident to the interested observer that we have not even yet done with the type of naval and military critic who would like to see the separate Air Force scrapped and the control of the Air Services reverted to the Admiralty and the War Office. From time to time there is heard a rattling among the dry bones which tells us much. For instance, al? a recent City dinner, Sir Percy Scott fell foul of the Government and naval policy during the War. He expressed • the view that the old naval standard had gone and asked what the new one was to be. The only decision come to during the War, he said, was to take away from the Navy its most vital arm, both of attack and defence. This, he believed, was a terrible blunder. So distinguished a naval officer as Sir Percy Scott is entitled to his opinions, but we would point out that very many others as distinguished hold views which are diametri- cally opposed to those he expressed the other night. It is pertinent to remark that after the system of two Services had been given an exhaustive and lengthy trial under war conditions.—we had been at war for three-and-a-quarter years when -the change was made —Parliament acted on the advice of those who knew and combined the R.N.A.S. and the R.F.C. into one single and distinct Service. It was not until this had been done that we attained to absolute superiority over the enemy in the air. We need not go over the whole sorry story of opposing interests in the two Air Services, fighting against each other to secure machines and material in competition, or the malign influences this competition exercised over efficiency. Nor is there need to do more than to refer to the petty jealousies manifested between the Services—jealousies which were inseparable from the dual control which existed and which did much to impede the common task of beating the enemy. All who had anything to do with the aerial side of the War, or who followed its history from inside, know to what we refer. The plain fact remains to refute the arguments and the diatribes of the champions of the bad old order of things that it was not until the R.A.F. was constituted that our aerial forces came on to an efficient basis and evolved a real esprit de corps peculiar to the Air Service. In war and in peace the R.A.F. has most completely justified itself and to retrograde as Sir Percy Scott and others would apparently have us do would be a capital mistake. Fortunately, those who have the ultimate say in the matter realise this, and there does not appear to be any immediate danger of the re- actionaries having their way. There is one point in which Sir Percy Scott is certainly wrong if his utterances have been correctly reported. Taken literally, he professes to say that the Air Service was taken away from the Navy during the War. It most certainly was not taken away. Not a machine, not a pilot, not a mechanic, was " taken away " in any true sense of the word. Administrative matters 1228
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